Amidst all the rumors of his sleeping around, The National Portrait Gallery in London succumbs to all the David Beckham hype. Accompanying the installation, there’s much high-fallutin’ soundbite on being inspired by Michaelangelo’s David (other than the shared first name, are they daft?), and how the footage is a “reverential and vulnerable image”. No one dared call it boring. And in this case, the emperor’s not wearing clothes, either.

But it could be that whatever causes they support or ideologies they subscribe to, the one thing that the killers have in common is a feeling of immense superiority. It could be that they want to exterminate us because they regard us as spiritually deformed and unfit to live, at least in their world. After all, it is hard to pull up to a curb, look a group of people in the eye and know that in a few seconds you will shred them to pieces unless you regard other people’s deaths as trivialities.

If today’s suicide bombers are victims of oppression, then the solution is to lessen our dominance, and so assuage their resentments. But if they are vicious people driven by an insatiable urge to dominate, then our only option is to fight them to the death.

On Wednesday, March 24 I wrote about Housing Restrictions: the planning board’s looking at limiting the ability of homeowners to sell for knockdown and rebuild. They’re still at it.

The joint Zoning Amendment Review Committee and The Principality’s Regional Planning Board. Yesterday’s article in the Packet states

On Tuesday, the committee began its review for the township by flagging several neighborhoods for planning staff to take a closer look at, including Littlebrook Road, Southern Way, Cedar Lane and the area around Lake Carnegie, which committee member Wanda Gunning called “prime tear-down territory.”

. . . “Once one of those houses has taken that leap it starts the trend,” Ms. Moore noted. “Once it gets rolling, every little house near a big house is at risk.”

[The Principality’s] Planning Director Lee Solow observed that a big, million-dollar house is not necessarily a negative for the township, which he said can benefit from the property-tax revenues.

Member Philip Feig said stricter zoning shouldn’t undermine homeowners’ rights to profit from their property holdings if they wish.

Member William Enslin asked, “Do people have unlimited rights to build a house totally out of proportion to the rest of the neighborhood?” Mr. Enslin said community diversity must be safeguarded with moderately priced housing.

Member Victoria Bergman said affordability can be attained through housing density, but Planning Board Attorney Allen Porter said density alone will not do it.

“The control on what they can sell for is what they can sell for,” Mr. Porter said. “In [The Principality], you’re up against the market.”

Let’s face it: real-estate “market forces” are not dictated from bureaucrats above high; market forces are determined in deed (in every sense of the word) and in fact by people wanting to buy houses and people willing to sell houses coming together at a mutually agreeable price.

We’re not talking about a contagious virus, and not “every little house near a big house is at risk”. Even if the owners want to sell it (for a lot of money) to someone who wants to tear down and build big, so what? A house’s aesthetic value, its practicality for contemporary life, and its optimal use are not determined by its size.

Property rights are the touchstone of democracy, and the main reason our country has prospered throughout its history. Touting someone’s idea of “diversity” and “affordability” as reasons for restricting property rights and not addressing high taxes — the reason why people with lower incomes who already own here are selling — is mere window-dressing.